Musings on leadership, management, strategy, economics, philosophy, and current affairs.

08/28/2009

Intrinsic vs Extrinsic Motivation

Dan Pink makes a convincing case suggesting the
mightiness of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation. In past few
months, we have heard lot of studies backed findings against the extrinsic
motivations from the field of social science. The studies became more frequent
as the news related with executive bonuses started making to front pages, due
to which I find these skewed.

On the subject of motivation, after Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs, I have found Edward Deci as one of the most incisive thinkers. He had his
book published in 1995 in which he propagated the concept of extrinsic and
intrinsic motivational needs - Autonomy + Competence + Relatedness being the
part of intrinsic motivational needs (which Mr. Dan has revised as Autonomy +
Mastery + Purpose). Without going in much detail I would draw attention to two
important points related with autonomy, as mentioned by Mr. Deci -

2.Importance of self-knowledge to distinguish
between ‘autonomy’ and ‘individualism’

Mr. Deci has suggested four ways to promote autonomy:

1.Give choices

2.Set limits with explanations

3.Set goals and evaluate performance (involve
people in setting goals).

4.Administering rewards and recognitions
(encourage doing best instead of competitiveness).

Mr. Deci states that extrinsic needs are - wealth, fame, and
beauty; and intrinsic needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In my
opinion, we should not look at extrinsic vs intrinsic, rather we should use
combination of both in a balanced way, as the needs are individualistic than
general, and also differ based on the level on Maslow's pyramid.